“D-Don’t tell me...” he gasped as he dropped down into the building.
As the smoke began to clear, he sensed someone there and began to tense up. Between the floor and the collapsed walls, at the edge of the hallway, a tall man had appeared.
—Who’s there?
Hiroshi was taken aback by the man’s strange aura.
“Well, isn’t this lucky... Perhaps the first good luck of my unlucky life.” The man — Boichiro — laughed. Beneath him was the principal, who was covered in rubble. He was still breathing, but he was badly hurt.
“Y-You bastard!” Hiroshi’s voice was shaking.
Boichiro put his sword away, however, and held up his hand for Hiroshi to stop.
“Wait a moment, hero. If you have that suit, you must be one of the Miwas.”
“Th-Then you’re...” Hiroshi gasped. “You’re the one who gave us this suit?” He was shocked to see that the man matched the description of the one his father had told him about.
“A pleasure to meet you, I suppose. I am Boichiro Yamato,” Boichiro said in a satisfied voice.
3 - Akuto and the Flying Carrier
“I-I don’t care about your name. Who are you? And what are you doing?” Hiroshi asked in a stammering voice, but he didn’t have time to wait for an answer. He couldn’t leave the principal where he was. He kept an eye on Boichiro as he began to help the principal out of the rubble.
The principal was still awake, but he seemed too concerned with Boichiro to thank Hiroshi for his help.
“S-Stop him...” the principal said. His body had shrunken, and he was back to being a frail old man. There was blood dripping from his forehead.
“But you’re hurt...”
“I’m fine. I just used up all the mana in my body, that’s all. If I didn’t change the path of that thing that was charging at us, it would’ve crushed me,” the principal said as Hiroshi helped him up. He tried to walk forward, but his feet were unsteady.
“That’s crazy!” Hiroshi said as he moved in front of the principal to protect him. He readied his high-frequency blade.
“Calm down,” Boichiro said. He snapped a finger, and suddenly Hiroshi’s suit disappeared. It seemed to have been sent back to its original dimension. Hiroshi was now defenseless.
“Uwah!” Hiroshi looked at himself in shock. In a panic, he called out to the unit on his arm. “Brave!”
But nothing happened. Hiroshi went pale as he looked at Boichiro.
“D-Don’t tell me...”
“You shouldn’t be surprised. I told you that I was the one who gave your family that suit, right?”
“So then you...”
“I have come from the future.”
It sounded like a joke, but Hiroshi was sure he was telling the truth.
“That’s right. He’s from the future. And he’s trying to put the gods under his control,” the principal said, as he knocked Hiroshi out of the way.
“But that’s crazy!” Hiroshi said in surprise. The principal turned back to look at him.
“You’re one of the students here, right? Then get back. I can’t let any more of my students be hurt.” The principal forced himself to smile, but Boichiro coldly shook his head.
“You don’t have the strength left to block my attacks, do you? I didn’t come here to fight you. If you give up, I won’t kill you.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. I have my pride, you see.”
“But old men like you don’t have much personal mana. Once you use all the external mana you’ve stored up, it will take time for you to recharge. I don’t know what trick you used to dodge my dimensional severing, but I do know that without mana, you can’t use it.” Boichiro drew his sword again and readied it. Then he continued, “I’m afraid that the dimensional severing can only kill, not stun.”
“I know that,” the principal replied with a laugh. “But with one of my students watching, I can’t embarrass myself.”
“I really don’t want to kill you, but you just refuse to understand.” Boichiro swung his sword, but the instant he did, Hiroshi leapt in front of the principal.
“Wait! Don’t hurt him!” Hiroshi was unarmed, but he shouted in the same firm voice he used when he was transformed into Brave. He was in a fighting stance, too, the same one Brave used.
“You’re helpless without your suit,” Boichiro said. There was no mockery in his cold voice; he was simply stating a fact.
But Hiroshi didn’t back down.
“I know that. But you need me.”
“Hmm?” Boichiro raised an eyebrow in surprise.
“Only I can use the suit. If you went through all the trouble of making an Anti-Demon King suit and giving it to me, it means that you can’t defeat the Demon King on your own. And you’re afraid that the Demon King is still alive.”
Boichiro, seeming slightly impressed, asked “Does that mean you’re willing to cooperate with me?”
“...I don’t know.” Hiroshi answered honestly. He didn’t know for sure that Akuto was still alive, but that was all he could say right now. When he said the words, he finally realized that he may have been the one responsible for Akuto’s death. But the battle wasn’t over. He couldn’t start crying now.
“But... I don’t know who you are or what you want, but I need power. So... I need to find out what it is you’re trying to do.” Hiroshi was thinking of Yuko. He needed power to protect her.
“Wait...!” the principal shouted as Hiroshi began to walk towards Boichiro. But when Hiroshi looked back, the principal shook his head as if he’d changed his mind.
“No... Maybe it should be the young ones that make the decision. Do what you like.”
That was all the principal said before he sat back down, seemingly resigned. Hiroshi looked pained for a moment, but then shook his head.
“Now tell me: which is better, to control the gods or to kill them?” Hiroshi began to walk after Boichiro.
“...Maybe this is all you could expect an old man to do.” the principal said after they were gone, as he began to move the rubble with his frail arms. “Now then... I would imagine that using the last of my mana saved him... But I wonder what your face looks like when you get hit with an airship?”
○
“I don’t know whether you’ll believe me or not, but the truth is that in the future, humanity has been destroyed...” Boichiro began to speak as he led Hiroshi underground.
“Destroyed...?”
“The Demon King destroyed us, of course. By killing the gods.”
“When you say ‘killing the gods,’ what do you mean?”
“It’s hard to explain. The gods have a will of their own, but no bodies.”
That much, Hiroshi could understand.
“This means that they’re unable to think like someone with a body would. Strictly speaking, there’s no ‘they.’ They don’t exist, and yet they think. Their very existence is a paradox. They’re computer circuits, that’s all. But how many circuits, and what kind of circuits, are required for thought to occur... nobody knows. All we know is that once there’s a certain number of them, they possess a will of their own. It’s the same way we don’t know where exactly ‘consciousness’ exists in the brain. Since they have no bodies, there is no distinction between themselves and the outside world. And thus, they can contemplate infinity. I don’t mean infinity in the numerical sense — they can contemplate infinitely dense infinities. And this means that they can reach a place that would seem, to biological life, to be infinitely far back in the past. These gods without a body can reach back to the thoughts of single-celled organisms. The birth of life, and thus, the birth of thought. And it is thought itself that creates the universe. Once again, I don’t mean the objective universe. There’s a school of thought that says that if the world were born five minutes ago, and we were all implanted with fake memories, none of us would be able to prove it. But that’s only true if you have a body. It doesn’t apply to thought without a thinker. Essentiall
y, the universe is real, and time only flows in one direction.”
Hiroshi didn’t understand most of what Boichiro was saying.
“So what are you trying to say?”
“The gods want to die, so that they can be reborn as life within another universe,” Boichiro said.
This, too, Hiroshi found himself somehow able to accept.
“Then the Demon King...”
“I believe the Demon King to be a destructive device, crafted by the gods through clever manipulation of humanity. At the same time, a being called The Law of Identity was born as well. When The Law of Identity makes “The Contract of One” with the Demon King, it becomes the vessel to being reborn into a different universe.”
“And what happens then...?” Hiroshi gulped.
“All of mankind dies. No, it doesn’t die, but it ends. The gods only see humans as data. So the gods only need a single body, for themselves. This also means they’ll be starting the next universe as single-celled organisms, too. Some believe that they do this to prevent themselves from being destroyed by the real God, which would come from the outer world, but there’s no way to confirm this. And even if that’s true, by putting the gods under our control, it’s a problem we can solve, isn’t it? We should protect the blessings we humans have been given. To love, to give birth to children, and to raise them. That should be our highest purpose,” Boichiro said calmly.
“I can’t believe this...” Hiroshi said.
“Traveling through time and touching the other dimensions is only possible because the Law of Identity exists. If I make a contract with her, I can control the gods. Do you understand now that my purposes are good?”
Hiroshi could only shiver in response.
—If the Demon King... if the Boss was born because the gods created him, then that’s so sad! I want him to live... I want him to live, but... Would it be better for humanity if he died?
Hiroshi felt something strange within him, a mixture of sorrow and resignation, and the next thing he knew he was speaking to Boichiro.
“I’ll help you. But if... if the Demon King is still alive, leave him to me. I can choose to let him live, as long as I don’t let him interfere, right?”
Boichiro nodded and replied, “That would be a great help to me.”
○
“It seems... we’ve lost.” Fujiko slumped forward in despair. Without Akuto, there was no point in fighting.
“Don’t worry. Ackie’s alive,” replied an unconcerned Keena.
“What?” Fujiko looked up at her.
“I can feel him, you know.” Keena was nodding like what she was saying was perfectly normal.
“I-Is that true?” Fujiko wasn’t sure if she could bring himself to believe her. If she got her hopes up that Akuto was alive, she might just be disappointed later. But Keena seemed as confident as if she were saying the sun would rise the next morning.
“It’s true.”
“I see... Alright.” Fujiko decided that if she was going to lose, she would fight until the end. “But things still look bad... The shock of the airship impact has the enemy too panicked to move, but we’ve also lost a huge number of our demon beasts. They’ll be here soon. And the principal’s been defeated, too...”
She barely had any cards left to play. And the biggest problem was that Boichiro was on his way here, too. Of course, she was worried about what he’d said. She thought about the conversation she’d just heard through her mana screen.
—Keena Soga is probably the Law of Identity. And what Boichiro is saying is probably true. It matches with the Black Mages’ teachings about a world free from divine interference, and the idea of killing the gods without allowing them to form a contract with the Law of Identity. What he’s saying and what he’s doing are right...
And yet, despite this, Boichiro was still her brother’s enemy.
—He killed my brother. And Akuto is so wonderful. Which means that there’s only one thing for me to do...
Fujiko stood up.
“We’re going to attack!” “Huh? But don’t we have to protect this altar?” Keena asked.
“Weren’t you listening? Boichiro is after you!”
“What?!” Keena shouted in surprise, as if she’d only just realized.
—So that’s it. The mind of the Law of Identity has gotten mixed up with her normal mind.
Fujiko summoned Cerberus and grabbed the pot off the altar.
—As long as I have this, I can keep the demon beasts alive.
She helped Keena up onto the beast’s back and then got on herself.
“Now let’s get going!” She spurred the Cerberus onwards. But before it could get to full speed, it suddenly stopped.
“...What’s wrong?” She patted its back lightly. But it just stared at a single point in the labyrinth corridor.
“Impossible...!”
Fujiko quickly grabbed a vial out of the leather bag she’d strapped to the Cerberus’s neck, and flung it at the spot it had been staring at. The vial shattered against the wall, sending a yellow liquid splattering.
“I knew it! Camouflage!”
The yellow splatter showed a strange protrusion from the wall. The protrusion was shaped like part of a human’s body. Her enemy had managed to dodge the vial itself, but not its contents.
“That paint won’t come off easily! Show yourself!”
The pattern on the wall began to shift as the person concealed there started to move. But as they moved, their color itself began to change. It went from a stone gray to a rubbery black. A moment later, a rubbery man with extremely long limbs appeared.
“I knew you’d come here!”
Fujiko immediately threw a fireball at him, but Rubbers clung to the wall, and then jumped up to the ceiling and began to crawl along it. Even if combat magic wasn’t Fujiko’s forte, she was still shocked at his speed.
Rubbers was clinging to the ceiling and not coming down; he had the perfect skill set for infiltration. And she’d just seen what he could do in his battle with the Hattori.
—I can’t let this end before I escape the school building!
Fujiko pulled a whip from her bag. She stretched it out with both hands, making a SNAP! sound, and then attacked Rubbers again.
Surprisingly, this time Rubbers didn’t dodge. There was a tearing sound, like ripping clothing, as the whip struck into his body.
—What?
Fujiko was shocked that it had worked, but soon her expression froze on her face. She could see the mark laid by the whip on his body, but Rubbers was running his hand along the wound, and shaking his body with joy.
“Wh-What’s wrong with you?”
She struck at him more. He still refused to dodge. In fact, he was moving his body so that the whip would strike him. Each time his body was struck, she could see him writhing with pleasure.
“Th-That’s creepy...” Fujiko put the whip away. It didn’t seem to be damaging him.
Rubbers spread out his arms and legs wide as he began to advance, as if he hadn’t had enough. From the way he was moving, he seemed to be inviting her to whip him more. She wasn’t sure if he was the type who enjoyed pain, if he was trying to show off how much punishment he could take, or if he was just trying to provoke her, but Fujiko’s morale was totally broken, and fear was running down her spine.
“Wh-Wh-What do we do?” For once, Keena was panicking too.
“There’s nothing we can do!” Fujiko shouted. She was completely at a loss.
Rubbers was advancing hopefully, but suddenly he stopped. Once he understood that he wasn’t going to get whipped, he crouched down as if pouting. But that only lasted a moment before his disappointment turned to rage, and he launched himself violently forward, like a snapping rubber band. He bounced off the ceiling and aimed for a spot behind the Cerberus while his hand reached out for Keena. He wanted to grab her as he landed.
Fujiko wasn’t a fighter, so while she could see what Rubbers was doing, she couldn’t stop it.
>
“No...!”
All she could do was turn around. Rubbers hand grabbed Keena by the waist.
“Kyaaah!” Keena screamed.
And then...
“Bat Storm!”
There was a shout as a black mass grabbed Keena away before Rubbers could get her.
Keena’s body floated up as she slipped out of Rubbers’ grasp. She came to a stop in the air in front of the Cerberus. Her body was wrapped in what looked like black cloth.
“What’s going on?” Fujiko shouted in surprise, but then the cloth around Keena’s body started to writhe.
What had looked like a cloth was actually a flock of tightly-packed bats. After they set Keena down, they flew away one by one, and began to gather next to her. They settled inside the cap of a pale girl who hadn’t been standing there a moment ago.
“Michie Otake, Student Council Vice President. The President has ordered me to come to your aid.” Michie spoke in an exaggerated, flamboyant manner as she drew a long, thin rapier.
“Vice President!”
“Did we have a Vice President?”
Fujiko was surprised, and so was Keena, though each for their own reasons.
“I guess I’m just not the type who stands out. Well, the three of us are almost never separated, so maybe you can’t recognize me on your own.” Michie sighed. Then she turned towards Rubbers with her sword held high.
“Either way, the President won’t admit it, but she sent me here to help you. Time to make sure you remember me!”
Michie motioned for the Cerberus to move behind her as she swung her rapier. When she swung it, a huge blast of wind came out of the blade. Her attack was a mix of magical wind and mechanical bats. The storm of sharply-cutting bats that had once attacked Akuto in the underground crypt was now going after Rubbers.
The bats themselves did little damage, but they knocked Rubbers back. In a cramped hallway, this was the perfect attack for delaying an enemy. Even if Rubbers could block the wind, the bats were mechanical, and nigh impossible to stop.
Demon King Daimaou: Volume 5 Page 6